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There is an exciting new yoga venture starting in Savannah. Brent Martin, who has been running Ashram Savannah for about a year, has been talking with a group of teachers about turning the Ashram into a cooperative effort. The goal is to create a space where teachers and students create a community dedicated to the practice of yoga on and off the mat. Brent describes his concept of the co-op well on the Ashram Blog.
From the teachers' perspective, the co-op offers the teachers an opportunity to rent studio space at a reasonable price. As long as the teachers can bring in a minimum number of students, they should be able to cover their rent and take home proceeds from the class. Teaching members also get to attend all of the classes at the Ashram for free, and participate in the operation of the co-op in exchange for a say in the decision-making processes.
Student members will get access to some of the best teachers and yoga events in Savannah at reduced prices. The co-op is also planning to have "Open Studio" times when the doors to the studio are open to paying members to come and do their own practice. The idea is targeted at Ashtangis and others who have a strong personal practice but want to practice with their peers or just want a clean, quiet space (free from kids, cats, dogs, laptops, piles of laundry and all of the other things that might make a good excuse not to practice). This is like a Mysore practice but there is no formal "teacher" - though one of the Ashram teachers will be there to open the door and practice or just hang out.
Starting in January I will be teaching at the yoga co-op at the Ashram on Thursday nights from 5:30 - 6:45 pm.
For more information check out the Ashram website.
If you've been reading my blog, you've probably noticed that I am a bit of a yoga workshop junkie. As I was looking back on my posts this morning I realized that my last five blog entries have been about my experience in various training courses and workshops in the last few months. And the journey continues...I have just been accepted into Mark White's MBody Teacher Certification Program in Jacksonville, Florida. The Baptiste Power Vinyasa style of yoga (which is what Mark teaches) is a lot like Ashtanga, so the practice is somewhat familiar to my body, but challenging in new ways.
The TCP is a 200 hour certification program, similar to the training I completed at the Asheville Yoga center in 2006. Between now and May I will be heading down to Jax for nine three-day weekends to complete the program.
Why would I be interested in a second 200 hour certification???...Very simply, I am hoping that Mark's program will take my practice and teaching to the next level. My friend Mindy just completed the program (which was her second 200 hr cert as well) and she was blown away by the experience. From what I hear from the students, the program is unique in the way it strives to teach students to find their authentic self and express this through their teaching. Mark accepts a very small number of students into the program (there were 10 in Mindy's class) so I should also get a pretty intense learning experience, in contrast to programs with 25+ students. I'll keep posting as the journey unfolds...
This past weekend I attended Baron Baptiste's One Day Personal Revolution Workshop in Jacksonville, Florida. I have enjoyed the few Baptiste Power Yoga experiences I have had to date, but had never taken a class or workshop from Baron himself. I went to see what all the fuss is about and experience my own "personal revolution."
The day started with Baron introducing himself and then asking students to stand up and talk about why they were attending. The responses ranged from "I love you, Baron" gushings, to some really powerful stories about how Baron had changed people's lives. It was clear that Baron has a very powerful impact on many of his students. The rest of the day consisted of a strong 2.5 hour vinyasa-style morning practice, a post-lunch Q&A session and a slower, more focused (but still intense) afternoon practice.
So...did I experience my own personal revolution??? I would have to say that I did have a very powerful experience, though I am not sure I would call it a revolution...it was more like a revelation. What keeps coming back to me in the days since the workshop is how much mental resistance I have developed in my own yoga practice and teaching style. While I have spent the past year learning Ashtanga and developing a deeper personal practice and much more flexible body, I have built up a set of mental boundaries about what my body can do and how I think about teaching and practicing yoga.
During the morning practice Baron led us through a progressively more and more intense vinyasa sequence, which closely mirrored a lot of the poses I do in my personal Ashtanga practice. This makes sense, since most power yoga is drawn from the Ashtanga vinyasa tradition. The Baptiste style, though, adds a few things to the Ashtanga sequence that I never do in my own practice. When we got to these poses, which were difficult for me physically because my muscles have no memory of doing them over and over, I confronted a type of mental resistance that I had not seen in a while. "This pose hurts my back." This pose can't be good for my back" "I should come out of this pose to prevent injury" "You're just being a wimp" "Breathe through it" "What if I hurt my back and have to sit out the afternoon practice?" and on, and on. Ironically, one of the poses I was struggling with, Crescent Lunge, is exactly what my body needs to open my quads, hips and thoracic spine for the back-bending poses that challenge me the most in my daily practice. A year ago I had the same reaction to some poses in the Primary Series, but I have done them so many times now that I have learned how to find ease or "sukkha" in them.
As far as teaching style goes, I went to the workshop wondering if I might sign up for Baptiste style teacher training at some point on the future. Because of this I paid close attention to the sequencing, verbal cuing and assists. While I enjoyed the workshop, I found my self critiquing some of the things that are different from the teaching style I have developed over the past 2 years. I thought the assists were too frequent and sometimes I felt like I was on the assist assembly-line. On the other hand, the comments from the students during the afternoon discussion were that the assists were great. I also bristled a little at the Tony Robbins-style life coach approach to teaching Yoga. When I reflect on that reaction, though, I realize that my reaction is a result of the personal dogma I have created about how yoga should be taught. The truth is that a lot of people respond well to motivational speaking, including myself, when I open myself up to it. I am still not sure whether or not I will sign up for Baptiste style teacher training, but I do have a much better sense of the practice and philosophy. Over the next several weeks I will chew on my experience a little and see where it leads me.
So...what were my revelations? (1) while attempting to become more flexible by practicing very consistently, I have have become more inflexible in terms of my thoughts and (re)actions (2) I need to loosen up and be more flexible with my personal practice and my teaching.
Musings from day 3 of the David Swenson Worshop....
David has all these great sayings and stories that he shares when he teaches. On the first day he told us that we should strive to do our practice like a zen calligrapher who uses the minimal amount of ink to convey the most beauty and harmony. A similar analogy he used was to practice yoga like a cat - i.e. using the least amount of energy required for any action.
This is really important in Ashtanga if you want to end up with more energy at the end of the practice than when you started. Which reminds me of another story he told us about David Williams - he says that David W. talks about increasing "his bars" - referring to cell phone bars. His goal in yoga is to increase the prana or life force in his body - at the end of practice, we should strive to have more "bars" than when we started. For those who practice yoga, hopefully you know of this strange phenomenon of leaving a very challenging asana class and feeling as if you could climb a mountain. The reasons for this are varied, but a lot of it has to do with the breath and its effects on the parasympathetic nervous system. I have found that if I stay focused on my breath throughout my practice. I am bringing more energy/prana in than I am putting out, even if the practice is strong. On days when I am scattered and just muscle through the practice without a good breath, I am drained and tired.
When I was in India, I kept waking up at 3 or 4 am each day even though I did not need to be at the shala until 6:00 am. At the time I was confused by how little sleep my body seemed to need when I was putting it through much more physical rigor than it was used to. Now I am pretty sure that the extra prana in my body was responsible for the unexplained energy and mental alertness I felt throughout my trip. Coincidentally, I have been waking up at about 4:00 am every day I have been in Florida, even though our workshop does not begin until 8:45 am. Hmmm....
I am in Winter Park Florida right now for a week-long workshop with David Swenson. Technically it is a "teacher training" workshop, but I am primarily here (or at least I keep saying I am primarily here) to deepen my personal practice. Whether I feel ready at the end of the week to try and begin adding some classes called "Ashtanga XYZ" to my teaching schedule remains to be seen.
I have been spending a fair amount of time debating this question of whether to teach classes called "Ashtanga". In this tradition, the" authorization" to teach is formally handed down from a member of the Jois family (Pattabhi Jois or his son Sharath). Since I am realtively new to this tradition, I am a long way off from being authorized by Guruji or Sharath. In fact, there is a strong possiblity that it would never happen! Several more trips to India would be required, not to mention some serious progress in my back bends.
On the other hand, I have been practicing yoga for about 10 years and teaching other types of yoga for more than 2 years. Part of me feels drawn to teach this practice that I love...and in the process help get more people in Savannah introduced to its beauty, simplicity and complexity. On a good day I think of this as a desire to grow a community of happy, well-balanced practioners. On a bad day I see this as just another ego trip in which I want people to want to love what I love. So....while a part of me tells me that it would be wrong to begin teaching formal group classes of a practice to which I am so "new," I know this practice better than any other yoga since I have practiced the same poses in the primary series sequence hundreds (and maybe thousands) of times.
David spent some time during the first day talking about what it takes to be a good teacher. In his opinion, certification can mean nothing - there are people who have a certification but are not ready to teach. On the other hand, as he pointed out, even Guruji and Mr. Iyengar have never been "certified" according to AYRI standards. Interesting note - we will not get a "certification to teach" from this class, but we will get a "certificate of completion" from his teacher training program.
At this point, my opinion is that a good teacher should have practiced the poses in the sequence enough times to be able to speak from a depth of personal experience. They should also be able to teach the sequence without having to do the poses with the students, so that they can observe and adjust and count the breath and do all of the things that are necessary in this complex practice. They also need to have enough wisdom to guide the students in the many, many questions that come up as students begin to peel back the layers of their egos and discover the lessons that reveal themselves through the the symbiotic emotions of accomplishment and humility. The dilemna is how to learn to do this without years of practice as a teacher!
For now I will keep teaching my "power yoga" and "dynamic flow" classes. I love these classes because they allow me to explore and grow my skills as a teacher without the responsibility (and baggage) of teaching the Ashtanga tradition. Plus it can be fun to lead a class with music!
